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It was telling from the first big keynote, that Oracle remains serious about retail. Walgreens, P&G and Dunnhumby were all on stage talking about their use of big data and the cloud in retail.

It was telling from the first big keynote, that Oracle remains serious about retail. Walgreens, P&G and Dunnhumby were all on stage talking about their use of big data and the cloud in retail.

During a keynote at the recent Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, Tim Theriault, senior VP/CIO of Walgreens, discussed his company's ongoing efforts at IT innovation. Walgreens has been involved in a number of notable recent innovative technology implementations, but column looks at the underlying strategy that helps ensure the success of those rollouts. Here are three takeaways other retailers can glean from Walgreens' innovation strategy...

During a keynote at the recent Oracle OpenWorld conference in San Francisco, Tim Theriault, senior VP/CIO of Walgreens, discussed his company's ongoing efforts at IT innovation. Walgreens has been involved in a number of notable recent innovative technology implementations, but column looks at the underlying strategy that helps ensure the success of those rollouts. Here are three takeaways other retailers can glean from Walgreens' innovation strategy...

Seven retail sessions were led by retail customers of ATG, a recent Oracle acquisition. Notably, John Thompson, SVP and General Manager from BestBuy.com led the closing keynote session. Other notable retail sessions featured Morrison's, Stein Mart, Scheel

In a No Jitter interview, Doug Suriano, SVP and GM, gives a preview of his morning keynote, shares strategic vision.

In a No Jitter interview, Doug Suriano, SVP and GM, gives a preview of his morning keynote, shares strategic vision.

Article highlighting how Oracle is positioning itself as a leading cloud service provider to federal government clients tasked with major IT initiatives that include moving to the cloud with tight or declining budgets. The article includes comments from Oracle Public Sector's Peter Doolan's keynote address at a government IT conference, suggesting that service-oriented model Oracle is trying to bring to its database offerings could resonate with federal clients who are being asked to undertake major IT initiatives while seeing their budgets decline. Oracle's holistic cloud offering would eliminate the multiple vendors commonly involved in cloud deployments today, a streamlining that should translate into lower costs for customers, which might particularly resonate with federal CIOs. The article also notes that Oracle announced its cloud advancements at the recent Oracle OpenWorld conference.

The Aug. 14 edition of GreenTechMedia includes the following article highlighting the ten predictions and trends for what the utilities industry will see in the software and smart grid market in coming years identified by the keynote speakers at GreenTechMedia's The Soft Grid 2012 conference. The fourth trend sited in the article notes the increasing role of open-source platforms in terms of distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers. The article notes that legacy players in the industry, such as Oracle, are building solutions around new open-source platforms.

In today's marketplace, "agile growth means the ability for an organization to change to meet shifting customer needs," says Herman Nell, vice president and CIO, Petco Animal Supplies, who delivered the keynote address at last week's RIS Retail Executive

Highlighting Linda Jackman's comments from a keynote address at The Networked Grid conference that Oracle is placing a larger focus on opportunities with water utilities.

In spite of a credit card breach a few months back, execs with Neiman Marcus are pleased at the pace with which the company is growing, especially in the online arena. In a keynote address last week at the two-day Oracle Industry Connect conference in Boston, Karen Katz, president and chief executive officer of Neiman Marcus Group Ltd. LLC, said the $5 billion retailer is in the midst of its largest-ever capital project, overhauling its merchandising system using Oracle. "It is big, scary and risky, and the only path we could have taken," said Katz. In addition, the company is making more tech enhancements to its 41 stores, including working further on its new app, which allows sales associates to chat with customers, send them product collages and make merchandise suggestions.

(Scroll to article just below ULTA feature:) Attendees at the annual Oracle event were treated to a number of presentations by retail executives, from companies including: Nordstrom, The Gap, John Lewis, adidas, Academy Sports, Chico's, Lilly Pulitzer and more. Recurring themes for sessions centered around omnichannel strategies and improving the customer experience with comprehensive technology solutions. During keynote sessions, Oracle executives talked about the importance of delivering Commerce Anywhere capabilities to retailers. Mike Webster, SVP and GM, Oracle Retail, noted: "You don't have a big data problem, you have a small insight problem…Big Science is the answer." Jill Puleri, Oracle's new SVP and GM, Global Retail Business Unit, discussed ways retailers are using mobile differently to address five elements of disruption: mobility, data breaches, same-day delivery, wearables and weather.

"Big data is not big news in retail but we are having to solve problems around the velocity and the variety of data," said Webster. "How do we bring in social interactions and marketing interactions together, to give you a more unified view of the entire customer engagement. We are a mobile world, with 6 billion mobile subscribers."